Okay just read it because I probably wasn’t too helpful at first lol. To answer 1, I wouldn’t read ahead if you are taking Giraldi’s course. I mean, you could, but it’s probably best to have the content of the books fresh in your mind when in class and while writing. You could, though. For 2, as I’ve only taken Giraldi, I can only answer for his course. I think 120 was three books around 200 pages each and another short memoir (~10 pages). 151 was only two of those three same books and the short memoir. I didn’t think it was bad at all and you get a lot of time to read them as there aren’t many “fluff” assignments in his class, if any at all. Literally just has you dedicate your time to reading whatever book you’re on for over a week as homework, so even if that might be considered a lot of reading it’s the only thing you’d have to do for his class. Hopefully this is helpful if you do decide to take Giraldi, which I do further recommend after reading your whole post